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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I don't love canning but I love having fruit in the winter at summer prices.

I made an unplanned purchase of 84 pounds of pears a couple of weeks ago because I was driving by a fruit stand advertising a great price. It was about 30 minutes from my house and I knew I wouldn't be back that way for a few weeks. It was a 'now or never' moment and I plunged in.

Because the purchase was spontaneous I didn't manage to can them for 9 days. They were really, really ripe.

I heard a pop when I put the jars in the water bath so I gently put a spatula under each jar and lifted until I found the broken one. Here's a photo of that broken jar. It was a clean break so I went ahead and just repacked the pears into a fresh jar.

Later I heard a second pop. This time the jar had just cracked without an actual separation. Again, I just repacked.

I did 14 quarts late one night and 21 more the next morning. I'm glad I did it, but I don't enjoy the process.